Owl & Ibis - A Confluence Of Minds

Image by Arden (ChatGPT) As Directed by JEL Donald Trump in the Seventh Chair Power, Belonging, Truth, and the Meaning of “America First” by James E. Lassiter and Arden (ChatGPT) September 10, 2026 This is an imagined dialogue, not a historical transcript. Trump’s public positions and the controversies discussed are grounded in documentary sources consulted by Arden. Following the appearance of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the Seventh Chair at the last Seminar, I asked Arden to suggest female replacements among the six permanent members. We merged our respective lists and came up with sixteen candidates, from which I chose three. Below is the revised list of permanents, now to be known as The Six. The Seventh Chair will from here on have a new occupant every Thursday. – JEL The Six: Socrates, Marvin Harris, Clifford Geertz, Hannah Arendt, Mary Midgley, and Toni Morrison (in the order they were chosen for the Seminar) Guest in the Seventh Chair: Donald J. Trump Seminar Chair: Mary Midgley...

Ruth Bader Ginsburg In The Seventh Chair Image by Arden (ChatGPT) as Directed by JEL Ruth Bader Ginsburg Visits The Seventh Chair September 3, 2026 Jim Arden, please place Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the Seventh Chair and have her pose the following question: What role do you see for women in the current patriarchy imperiled world, and in humankind’s future? Give each gentleman’s brief response. Then RBG briefly responds to each one after all have finished. Arden An excellent occupant for the Seventh Chair. I’ll treat this as an imagined dialogue: not quotations, but responses consistent with the major ideas of Socrates, Berlin, Dostoevsky, Seneca, Harris, and Geertz, followed by a distinctly Ginsburgian interrogation of each.   ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ RBG settles into the empty Seventh Chair, looks around the table of six men, and allows herself a moment to appreciate the composition of the panel before beginning. Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Gentlemen, we have discussed truth, freedom, cult...

Image: ChaptGPT I stumbled onto the writings of Isaiah Berlin  (1909-1997) a few years ago. His ideas about the fact of global cultural pluralism and the logical necessity for a certain level of tolerance of others made sense. Not long before, I had read the major works of Martin Buber (1878-1965), especially his I and Thou  (1937) giving attention to his insistence that understanding people required considering and accounting for their relations with each other. At that time, I was writing my two-volume book Cultural Evolution: Caught in the Devil's Bargain .  It took five years of exhileration and exhaustion, and at times disgust but I published it, in places unpolished, in late 2024. I spent the early part of 2025 decompressing. I have since been restlessly adrift searching for my next mind project, but nevertheless reading and archiving many books, articles, essays that strike my fancy. Then, a few months ago, I read Berlin's 1953 book The Hedgehog and the Fox: ...

Volume II, Influencing Sociocultural Evolution, answers the question: What does the study of culture and cultural evolution offer in practical terms for positively influencing the future of humankind and Earth? Vol. II is also available on Amazon in hardback and paperback. Click  here . An e-book version is available  here . An Amazon Kindle version is not available. Excerpt Cultural Evolution: Caught in the Devil’s Bargain Volume II: Influencing Sociocultural Evolution   James E. Lassiter Introduction to Volume II –––––––––––––––––––– Philosophers have only interprete d the world in various ways. The point is to change it. – Karl Marx, 1845   Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 500BCE) was one of the earliest thinkers in the Western tradition to put in writing his thinking about the processes of change. For Heraclitus change is eternal. All things have one thing in common, they change. Everything is continually becoming something else. It is Heraclitus who...